“Rest assured that Chronil­log­i­cal has a future. … The strip has cer­tainly had ample time to die by now, if it were des­tined to die!” [Source]

I did not know it at the time, but that turned out to be a lie. Oops!

After three years, maybe 150 comics or so, blah blah blah, everyone’s heard this story before. In short, we lost interest, and now we are giving up (perhaps more accurately, we gave up a while ago, and are now owning up to it). We certainly didn’t set out to disappoint anybody, but it’s probably best to stop and move on instead of plodding ahead with something that just doesn’t have the same meaning it used to (for us, anyway). Right? That’s what I tell myself.*

So, as a send-off, let’s remember the good times as I link to some of my favorite comics that we’ve done:

The Most Important Moment in History (1 of 2)
Good Work Indeed
Brown Brown Brown
The Winter strips with Mr. Skeleton are all pretty good: [1] [2] [3]
And finally, Civil Discourse Man

So, to the long-haulers, thank you for reading! To those who just stopped by for a laugh or two, thank you for reading as well. To those who dared to share yet another webcomic with a friend, thank you twice. Thank you all. And be excellent to each other.

—
* Greg and I have gotten accustomed to this comic-making thing, though, and we are playing around with some new ideas behind the scenes—ideas that are SO FRIGHTENINGLY PRELIMINARY, it would be foolish of us to go around making grand announcements about them right now. If and when they come to fruition, we’ll figure out a way to tell you. Announcements will appear here, I’m sure, and probably on Twitter, and maybe Facebook, and maybe Tumblr too.

And after while, the artist (or writer) (or artist/writer combo) (or just the artist despite a combo, but I am getting ahead of myself) might walk into view from behind the content blackout, clear his throat, and offer excuses that are mostly unsatisfying.

So … hello again!

Yes, for the third time in a year, hello hello. Today, I speak to you on my own behalf, and not on Greg’s, because this is all my fault. (Mine. All of it!) Honestly, I’m not really sure what to say—it’s pretty clear that my interest in Chronillogical has waned a lot lately, and I need to figure out why. Right now, it feels as though there are a lot of reasons, nebulous and ill-defined, most of which fall under the umbrella of “my arting skills are pretty poor and drawing this strip is a pain, which makes me not want to do it!”

What’s frustrating is that, when the strip started, this was a problem that I could at least push aside long enough to finish something. For about a year and a half, we kept Chronillogical on a pretty regular schedule. But after a while, the strip didn’t feel right, and so I suggested making changes to it. Updates suffered. Then they suffered again. And now again. And I think it’s safe to say now that I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not industrious enough to fake it! Not yet. With work and luck, that day will come. (On Eileen.)

Rest assured that Chronillogical has a future. (GET IT okay never mind this is not the time for that.) (Not the TIME okay seriously I will stop.) The strip has certainly had ample time to die by now, if it were destined to die! But I need to do some serious work before we’ll know what Chronillogical’s future should look like. Maybe when that day comes, I’ll be able to commit to a regular schedule, like the grownups do. Until then, subscribe to the feed and we’ll let you know what’s up, when it happens.

For right now? It would be irresponsible for me to make promises like “new comics next week!” so I’m not going to say that. Greg and I have some ideas to wrap up this arc, so we’ll probably move ahead with that before getting all experimental up in here. I don’t know exactly when they’ll show up on the site.

If I’ve left out any details you’re curious about, please sound off in the comments!

So our hope was to have the latest strip done by Christmas Eve (today!), and that did not happen. Clearly! And it’s not our wish to leave folks without anything at all on this, the day before tomorrow, so I decided instead to briefly resurrect a hallowed Chronillogical tradition.

(I wonder if TUBACHRISTMAS organizers would consider incorporating any contemporary film scores into their caroling repertoire this year.)

All right, I’ve got presents to wrap, superstars. So you all have a Hoppin’ TUBACHRISTMAS, a Boppin’ BASSCLARINETHANUKKAH (belated), and a Zippy BANJOSATURNALIA!

This next comic has had a couple of false starts, and after a night that yielded zero usable material, I said to myself, “Screw it. Screw this noise. I am going to draw Lucca Ashtear.” And, lacking a gavel, I pounded my fist upon the desk. The heavens thundered in assent. It was rad.

I will admit that I have played some Chrono Trigger these past few weeks on the DS—hence the picture. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Chrono Trigger is a game that both Greg and I have played¹ and enjoyed and remember fondly. It’s easily one of the best RPGs I’ve met, which is a meaningless statement considering 1) how many other people say that and 2) how few RPGs I have in fact played. That doesn’t diminish its influence on our work, though.

In fact, when Greg and I find ourselves in a tough spot (with regards to story or characters or perhaps both at the same time), invariably we will ask ourselves “Why doesn’t this feel more like Chrono Trigger?”² And for good reason! It’s a fun story with fun dialogue and fun characters³—do you sense the subtle pattern here?!

Funness is, after all, the essential element that we strive for. Sometimes we succeed more than other times, and I know that, for the long-term, we are headed in the right direction. All I have to do now is finish the next dang strip so that I can prove it to you.

tl;dr ct 4 lyfe

—
¹ Perhaps not so long ago as you’d expect—I didn’t touch it until my freshman year of college (!) and I don’t think Greg completed a full playthrough until he was well into high school.

³ Lucca strikes me as one of the story’s less engaging characters, actually, but she has a fun look. (Fun!!) You know who has a flippin’ weird look? The protagonist. What is up with that hair, somebody please tell me what is up with it. (Aaand here I am, bewildered at the hairstyles in a JRPG. I am 65.)

On top of that, the strip that follows this one will be about twice as long as the ones we’ve been posting lately. As a result, it will also be delayed a bit—so that’s some extra good news for everyone!

I feel I’ve fulfilled the Webcomics Artist archetype quite well today, I really do. Delays! Excuses! Apologies! These, my friends, are the fundamental elements that combine to spell “Professionalism”.

(Anyway. See you in a few days!)

Or is it?!

NEWW has come and gone, and the weekend is still fresh in my mind. A cliché, I realize. It’s true though! As I’ve said in many blog posts prior to this one, Sara was there—taking photos, no less!—and she’s been nice enough to cull her favorite pictures into a Flickr photo set. Ain’t that great!

What follows might be considered long and name-droppy. I apologize for none of it. What else is a con report supposed to be, anyway? (Also, there are a lot of dashes, and I don’t apologize for those either.)

Friday

After a taxing¹ nine-hour drive up from Cleveland, we finally found ourselves in Northampton: small, busy … cold. La Veracruzana provided the evening’s dinner burritos² before we walked over to Modern Myths, local comic shop and starting line for the evening’s Pub Crawl. Among the coalescing attendees, we met Indigo—not the color, but an aspiring webcartoonist herself³, and a welcome companion for most of the night. Once everyone had a chance to make eye contact and nod and laugh nervously, we headed out. The word “crawl” implies a journey with multiple stops, you might think, but we arrived almost immediately at The Tunnel Bar and didn’t leave until the night was almost over.

Have you ever imbibed at a place built inside of a train tunnel? The doors to the place rest inside of a brick archway, and the interior is slick as all hell. It suffers from an epidemic of incurably comfy chairs. I ordered a Coke (yawn!) and assumed we’d sit around for a half hour or so, making friendly conversation until somebody decided we’d keep crawling, as it were⁴. Nope! Thanks to a well-timed bathroom trip, we figured out that stuff was happening on the second floor⁵.

The crowd was small at the start, but big folks (both figuratively and literally) were there: Ryan North, Jeph Jacques, and Joey Comeau counted among them (Comeau having a more figurative than literal bigness). Crowds grow, though, you know. At some point, the lights had dimmed—very atmospheric and conducive to drinking, I imagine—and I realized I’d had some very nice conversations with Tyson Hesse and Josh Lesnick about how great their comics are. Spike was there, projecting a sort of friendly impish aura as she talked, as well as other people I am forgetting, I’m sure.

I was really lucky, though, to run into Diana Nock, who shared important advice regarding print collections, grants, and convention etiquette, among other things. It was pretty embarrassing to look a certified illustrator in the eye and say “I have never read your comic … but … but I have heard really nice things.” Didn’t seem to phase her too much, though, which was a super relief.

Brian Carroll was also there, and one phrase comes to mind when describing him: Brian Carroll is a maniac. The good kind. This is a cryptic way of saying that he’s (very) passionate about filmmaking, and also an energized speaker.

By that time, Sara and I decided to head out to the Dirty Truth, home of a thousand exotic ales. On our way out, we met Stevie—a fan of the comic! The first I’ve met in person, and a good-humored scholar, whose taste in comics is obviously excellent—and Magnus, NEWW’s official photographer for the second year in a row. You should look at this photo set of his, because it is a veritable bonanza of pictorial documentation.⁶

Saturday and also Sunday

These days were pretty similar. We drove down to Eastworks after sleeping in a little too late—those nine-hour drives, they linger with you—and divided our time between booth-hovering and panel-watching. Standard con stuff, as you’d expect, accompanied by the clear impression that most of exhibitors and attendees did indeed show up straight from the internet.

Especially memorable panels included “Cartoonists Answer your Questions about Star Trek” —self-explanatory, though dangerously close to being TNG-exclusive, if not for Dylan Meconis and her “old money” geek cred—and “QUICK DRAW!”, where audience members shouted suggestions for drawings at a cluster of bewildered cartoonists (fig. 1: “The King of Food“, by Meredith Gran and KC Green). MC Frontalot laid down his trademark rhymes during a pair of super-exclusive secret VIP concerts⁷ on Saturday night. Who could say no to the king of nerdcore?⁸

I think that covers the meat of it, but the comments are open if the specifics are unclear. If I’m not mistaken, Meredith Gran and R. Stevens were greatly responsible for the convention’s success, and a success it certainly was. To everyone involved in making NEWW run smoothly: it was a fantastic show!

¹ Actually, you know what? Not that bad, it turned out. iPods really liven up criminally unending stretches of road, as you might expect. Also, the off-road McDonald’s we ate at in New York: depressing, and not nearly as nice as the McDonald’ses we saw in Massachusetts. Go figure.

This weekend, in fact—with the celebrated Pub Crawl launching Friday night and the convention’s official launch on Saturday. We’ll be there (we being me, John, and Sara, Official Chronillogical PR Manager)! We’re pumped to go! Psyched, if you will. Are you going? Be on the lookout for two people who look kind of like this:

No photos handy, I’m afraid. Anyway—NEWW! It’s coming up! Oh yes, I said that in the title. OK then!

If anyone happens to know of any particularly good resources on the subject — with regards to fashion and architecture, especially — we’d appreciate the help. Such are the powers of the internet?!?

I, however, do not have to think about succeeding, for my attendance is secured. And so is the attendance of Sara, our good friend and Official Chronillogical PR Manager—she who said, “Fellas, having business cards with us (mini business cards?!) would be a good idea,” to which we responded, “Yes you are right!” I’m not sure that these are the final designs just yet, but they should be pretty darn close to the real deal, at least:

How droll! Screaming faces—that will get their attention, surely. Boy howdy, I sure hope so, anyway, because just look at all the people that are attending. And those are just the famous* ones!

If anyone’s headed out that way, and our eyes happen to meet beneath the setting sun, don’t fear the feelings** that swell inside you. Embrace them. Savor them. Or just, you know, say “hello” and commence what will be a pleasant little chat, I am sure. That works too!

* Internet fame valid only at participating locations.
** The perfectly natural feelings.